140 year of Shriners

Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Shrine Game raises $146,000

BUTTE -- The Board of Directors of the Montana East-West Shrine Football Game has approved the donation of $146,000 to the Shriners Hospital for Children in Spokane, Wash.

The 67th annual Shrine Game was played at Naranche Stadium in Butte in July. The West team beat the East 31-28.

“This is a new record donation to the hospital for the Montana East-West Shrine Game,” said board president R.J. Olson. “Since the game began rotating between Butte, Billings, and Great Falls five years ago, the Montana Shrine Game has donated more than $350,000 to the Shriners Hospital for Children in Spokane.”

This year’s donation from the Montana Shrine Game is also one of the largest in the nation to date.

“We are extremely proud of the donation that will be sent to the Hospital this year,” said Butte board member Ryan Jonart. "To be recognized as one of the top Shrine Games in the country is a huge accomplishment. This is a direct result of the support of our sponsors -- they really stepped up and showed the support that Butte, the surrounding area, and the state of Montana is capable of. We're excited to present this donation to the hospital.”

Monday, October 28, 2013

cnInspired by the success of I-Hop Pancake days for Shriners Hospitals, Noble Mel Anspach Temple Donor Development Representative at the Murat Temple in Indianapolis Indiana wanted to create a similar event in his region. After being turned down on a promotion proposal with Steak and Shake, Mel admits he was “stymied about his next steps” until being introduced to David Dore a Medinah Shriner (Illinois) then Regional Director of a 39-store White Castle Hamburger restaurant territory in Indiana. “I was introduced to David by Jerry Wilson, former Medinah Temple Potentate. David and I arranged a brief meeting where I presented the White Castle Day idea to benefit Shriners Hospitals for Children and he was taken with the concept.”

After David Dore received an approval to proceed by White Castle’s ownership, Mel went in to action. His first challenge was logistics, both volunteer power and a method to safely collect and transport the donations made by restaurant customers. “ White Castle stepped up and offered to have their register employees ask for the donation and include it on the customers bill. This way funds could be moved through the chain’s cash management system, with a secure transmission of the funds collected to our bank.” The chain’s management also offered a certificate for three free White Castle burgers to each customer that made a donation to Shriners Hospitals for Children. They also gave each worker a free combo meal as a thank you for their help with the event.

The next hurdle was securing enough “workers,” volunteers from Shrine Temples throughout the region to meet and greet White Castle patrons. Since about 80% of White Castle’s business is drive-up, Mel elected to station Shriners outside of each restaurant handing out Shriners Hospitals literature, greeting the customers — not asking for funds. Another volunteer was also inside to reach out to the sit-down customers.

After many e-mails, phone calls and personal conversations, Mel was able to arrange for 33 team captains to help him recruit 234 Shriners to take 4-hour shifts during the 11:00 AM- 7:00 PM promotion hours. As a display of brotherhood, the Medinah Shriners sent a Winnebago with nine Nobles to serve as customer greeters at a downtown Indianapolis store that did not have enough volunteers for the weekday event.

Grassroots PromotionMel explained that funds to promote the White Castle event were limited, so he got creative. Noble Anspach was able to convince 14 mayors of Indiana towns in the promotional area to issue official proclamations declaring August 14, 2013 White Castle Day for Shriners Hospitals for Children. “We got a lot of publicity from the proclamations including some local newspaper coverage a few days prior. County Shrine Clubs were well represented at the local proclamation ceremonies, and that’s great for local awareness.”

White Castle generously underwrote the cost of $800 worth of lawn placards that promoted the Shriners Hospital burger day, driving additional traffic to the stores- a clear win-win.Another form of promotion was social media. Many of the Shriners involved in the volunteer work reached out to their social network friends asking them to stop by enjoy lunch and help the kids. Noble Anspach cited one Shriner who raised about $170 from an e-mail to friends who wrote back to say they couldn’t make it, but wanted to donate a little money to help the cause.

ResultsDuring this 8-hour event, the White Castle promotion brought in $12,450 dollars to help provide care to the children we serve. Mel stated, “ the money we collected is truly important, but I believe the real success of this promotion, was the positive image for the Shrine and new public interest in the great work we do for children at the hospitals.”

David Dore, John Cinotto- Imperial Potentate, Jim Priest, Mel Anspach

He also advises anyone taking on a similar event to invest heavily in communications with your team members. A personal phone call before the event day confirming the details will make a tremendous difference.”

What’s Next?Assuming permission is granted by White Castle for another hospital day, Mel hopes to add the 86- store Chicago market to the 2014 fundraiser. “Our long-term vision is to include Kentucky, Ohio, Minnesota and ultimately reach all 407 locations.”

Sharing information and building on our successes will be crucial to achieving local fundraising goals. In the months ahead we’ll share more successful fundraising programs and advice from the professionals making some great things happen.

By Marisa DeCandido

Bismarck's Order of the Rainbow for Girls held its first Spaghetti Luncheon today to raise money for a good cause - the Shriners Children's Hospital.

The lunch was all you can eat with a suggested donation of five dollars. The group chose Shriners as its charity this year because its advisor is a pre-med student, and the Rainbow Girls will use the money for hand-made tie blankets for children at the hospital.

"It gives them a little comfort as they travel back and forth because there's lots of kids coming from really small areas that takes a couple hours to get here and that way they have some sort of comfort and relaxation before they go and see all the doctors," says Bismarck Rainbow Girls Advisor, Jenny Galbraith.

The Rainbow Girls are also selling homemade pies for the holidays. If you're interested, you can call the group at 701-226-6984.

The 2014 East-West Shrine Game® is quickly approaching and tickets are now available for the Players’/Hall of Fame Banquet. We would love to have you and your family join us for dinner with the players, coaches, NFL Alumni and Shriners Hospitals for Children patients. The event includes the presentation of the East-West Shrine Game Pat Tillman Award and the East-West Shrine Game Hall of Fame inductees, honoring all stars of the past and present.

While the data are limited, it's clear that online giving is becoming more common. According to a Chronicle of Philanthropy analysis of online donations, more than $2.1 billion was raised online for charity in 2012, a 10.9 percent increase from the $1.8 billion raised in 2011. And this doesn't even include the revolution in new payment processing solutions and crowdfunding platforms (I'll get to that in a minute).

Network for Good's most recent study of the topic found that giving through social networks is significant, but donor loyalty is highest on the charity websites that build strong connections with donors.

This is all about to change and improve for the better. In the next two years, social media will become the primary way that Americans give money to charity. Here are four reasons why:

RT for a good cause. Each retweet sends 50¢ to help kids in foster care. #TreatItFwd

Wendy's is not exactly a sexy brand and most people don't spend their time thinking about foster care, but by giving millions of people the opportunity to quickly and effectively participate, Wendy's tapped into people's inherent desire to help.

At its core, social media is about status and reputation, and those sharing cause-related content can feel like they are doing good in the world while also showing their friends something about who they are. Increasingly, corporations will tap into this need which will simultaneously improve their bottom lines and improve our world.

2. Twitter e-commerce will become easier.

When Twitter seamlessly integrates one-click shopping -- or in this case, one-click donations -- the world of philanthropy will change. Twitter has firmly established itself asthe global town square; it's the place the world goes to hear -- and talk about -- what is happening in the world. Once Twitter incorporates simple in-stream payments, it will allow non-profit organizations with compelling content to very rapidly gather small donations. When these donations are centered on self-organized teams or life events, this fundraising approach will become even more effective. Now those gathered in the global town square will be able to take collection action -- immediately.

The nonprofit organization charity: water has mastered this marketing technique through their birthday crowdfunding platform, but their work, and the work of others, will be more effective when it takes only seconds to make a donation directly from your Twitter feed.

Additionally, imagine the implications of this when a major global humanitarian crisis or natural disaster occurs. Millions of people will instantly donate to relief efforts. In other words, we're going to see the rise of an online army for good.

3. Crowdfunding options for non-profits continue to grow

4. Smart non-profits will deepen their reliance on social media for reporting and marketing.